Many elderly people have difficulty getting up from chairs, beds, sofas, etc. that sit too low to the ground. For such people the ability to dependably use the furniture in their homes can be critical to maintaining their independence. That is, for many such people, except for the difficulty in using their furniture they would be entirely capable of living in their homes. Because, however, such persons often cannot reliably get up out of a bed or a chair that sits too low to the ground, they often are unable to continue living in their homes with their existing furniture.
Several options become available in such situations. In some cases, the person is forced to move to some type of assisted living quarters, usually at significant expense and with personal dislocation. Another option is to replace the too-low furniture with taller furniture (or with furniture having remote control adjustments to help stand the person up); this, too, can involve considerably expense, and involves significant change that can be quite disruptive to many elderly people. Yet another option is to modify their existing furniture to make it taller. Usually it is difficult to actually replace furniture legs with longer legs. Modifications thus typically must be accomplished by extending the length of the existing furniture legs. Because of the variety of types and styles of furniture legs, such modifications are not easily accomplished. Moreover, to make sure that the extended legs are sturdy, leg extensions must be firmly secured to the existing legs. On a piece of fine furniture, this often can cause permanent damage or disfigurement to the piece of furniture.
A variety of furniture leg extenders have been proposed in an attempt to deal with the above problems. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,072,791 (Bear) depicts the use of an adjustable bed elevating device under each of the four legs of a bed. Each device consists of a round base supporting a set of generally vertical telescoping tubes, on top of which is mounted a circular cup. The cup is large enough to hold the castor wheel of a typical bed frame leg. While Baer's elevating devices do raise the bed significantly, they have limited stability because they are not secured in any way to the legs or frame of the bed (or to each other) and they are substantially taller than they are wide. Thus, if one "fell" into the bed, it could easily be rocked off of the leg extenders (often when elderly people sit down onto a chair or bed they are not strong enough to sit down in the normal smooth, controlled fashion, but end up "falling" the last several inches into the chair or bed). Also, when one gets up out of the bed, the normal tendency (particularly for the elderly) is to push not only down with ones hands but also backward, thus again creating a situation where the bed could easily be rocked off of the leg extenders.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,060,896 (Hobbins) depicts the use of four individual leg extenders on a chair having four generally straight legs. Each of Hobbins' leg extenders includes an elongated tubular member. The bottom of the chair leg rests on a support member extending out laterally from the tubular member. A portion of the tubular member extends upwardly along one or two sides of the chair leg, this portion of the tubular member being strapped tightly onto the leg to provide a secure connection between the leg and the leg extender. In order for this connection to be secure, however, the chair leg must have a generally constant external shape (e.g., square or round)--otherwise the fit between the chair leg and the leg extender would be loose and not entirely stable. Thus, Hobbins' device would not work well on a leg that has a castor or any significant curve near its bottom end (e.g., cabriole leg or legs with rims, ridges, fancy turnings or even a simple taper). Hobbins' device also depends heavily on the strength and rigidity of the strap securing the device to the leg--if the strap stretches or loosens, the weight of the chair (and the person sitting on it) will tend to urge the leg to slip off of the support member.
Several other inventors have attempted to solve the stability problems noted above by providing rigid mechanical connections among each of the four leg extenders used to raise chair. Examples of these proposed solutions are found, e.g., in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,215,382 (Stein), 3,952,983 (Crochet) and 5,333,825 (Christensen). Because different pieces of furniture have different leg spacing, however, these structures require some type of adjustment system to permit alignment of each of the leg extenders with its respective leg while nevertheless maintaining a rigid connection among the leg extenders. The adjustment mechanisms therefore provide significant extra weight and complexity to the device, and can be very cumbersome. Moreover, to prevent their adjustment mechanisms and connections from becoming overly heavy and cumbersome, they typically are designed only for use with furniture having legs spaced relatively closely together (i.e., typically just chairs).